Designing Sound for Recreation and Well-Being
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Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression Designing Sound for Recreation and Well-Being Anders-Petter Andersson Birgitta Cappelen Fredrik Olofsson Kristianstad University Oslo School of Architecture & Design Musikproduktion 29188 Kristianstad 0175 Oslo Boxhagener Str. 16 QG Sweden Norway 10245 Berlin [email protected] [email protected] Germany [email protected] ABSTRACT with and ambient sounding furniture. We try to understand how we In this paper we explore how we compose sound for an interactive can compose dynamically changing music for many relations like tangible and mobile interface, where the goal is to improve health these. Music that motivates users to act and shift roles between those and well-being for families with children with disabilities. We relations. Something that according to our observations of families describe the composition process of how we decompose a linear interacting contribute to health and well-being. beat-based and vocal sound material and recompose it with real-time We know that musical activities are good for health and well- audio synthesis and composition rules into interactive Scenes. Scenes being, based on the last 15 years of research [3, 12, 8], and on that make it possible for the users to select, explore and recreate practice in peoples everyday use of music as “soundtracks of our different sound worlds. In order to recreate, the users interact with the lives” for regulating emotions and social relations (6) and in Music tangible interface in different ways, as instrument, play with it as a Therapy. Music has a documented ability to evoke emotions, help friend, improvise and create music and relax with it as ambient mastering tasks and situations such as playing instruments, and sounding furniture. We discuss composition techniques for mixing managing the own body [12]. It further strengthens social relations sound, tangible-physical and lighting elements in the Scenes. Based through singing in choirs, dancing and listening. Finally music on observations we explore how a diverse audience in the family and creates individual, cultural and social meaning and a sense of at school can recreate and improvise their own sound experience and coherence in life [2, 12]. We like to call this perspective a relational play together in open and non-therapeutic everyday situations. We and resource-oriented perspective emphasising what a person can do conclude by discussing the possible impact of our findings for the rather than his or her weakness or illness [11, 12]. The concept of NIME-community; how the techniques of decomposing, relation is used by musicologist Christopher Small and is linked to recomposing and recreating sound, based on a relational perspective, his term “musicking” [13]. He describes music, not as an aesthetic could contribute to the design of new instruments for musical object or work of Art, but as potential relations between persons, expression. their experiences of music, and activities of all sorts of music making. Many traditional and electronic music technologies used for well- being have limitations and even show negative effects on well-being Keywords and health. This is confirmed by Music Therapist and Music and decompose, recompose, recreate, mobile, tangible, well-being, Health researchers [9, 5] working with assistive technologies like the SuperCollider, Inclusive Design, Assistive Technologies, relational ultrasound sensor SoundBeam (http://www.soundbeam.co.uk) and 1. INTRODUCTION switch-based Paletto (http://www.kikre.com). In our view, the reason for negative effects is a belief that users need to establish a causal It is normal in many composition traditions to borrow musical understanding of stimuli-response prior to that they can start creating material from others. In classical, modern and popular music the music, express relations and experience meaning. Even if the composer tends to borrow musical elements and structures. In intention may be good, the focus on a tool-oriented cause-and-effect interactive computer based composition the focus normally is more can make a physically or cognitively weak user experience fatigue on the development of new instruments; either as tools for the and disempowerment before being able to master actions like hitting composition, but more often, as parts of the composition. A typical a particular sensor and create music [9, 5]. “NIME-interface” often is a unique interpretation of how action In previous papers we have showed an alternative strategy to connects to sound, and "...understanding this interpretation can be as building interfaces based on tool-oriented cause-and-effect [1, 5]. aesthetically rewarding as listening to the sound itself." [10, p. 57] Instead we have expanded the role of the traditional music instrument Our experience, though, is that something else happens if you bring [4]. As alternative we have designed computer based interactive the instruments out into the everyday world of amateurs. An interface music interfaces building on the relational and resource-oriented such as Reactable (www.reactable.com) is more than a tool and perspectives described above [13, 11, 12]. Interfaces that learn, composition. It has a physical presence. When Reactable is exhibited remember, and adapt their responses after diverse users’ abilities. at a museum where children play, it creates many relations to its Interfaces that are rich tangible multimedia that change the sound users. Yes, it becomes a tool for creating music, but also toys to play responses musically over time and with the user interaction. The result is that persons interacting are motivated to create, strengthen Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal social relations, play and improvise, experience sense of coherence or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or and well-being. distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice Earlier studies of computer based music and assistive technologies and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on for persons with disabilities that follow a relational perspective are servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. rare to find. There are even fewer studies for this group investigating NIME’14, June 30 – July 03, 2014, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. practical-creative work with composition techniques and expressive Copyright remains with the author(s). qualities of such computer based technologies. It makes our preliminary findings [4, 5, 1] unique. 529 Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression The research question we like to explore in this paper is how one combined dynamically by the users over time. Our earlier findings (1, can compose sound for an interactive mobile and tangible interface, 4, 5, 14, 15) show that musical variation and change over time is motivating and strengthening well-being for families with children important for creating expectations and motivate persons on different with severe disabilities. levels of mastery to continue to be active and create relations. Again Our practical example is the tangible interface Reflect, and our this is a complement to the tool-oriented focus on cause-and-effect suggestion for composition techniques is a process of decomposing, discussed above. Further, when recomposing rules for change over recomposing and recreating. The composer decomposes linear music time, the composer take into consideration both the musical consisting of strong musical elements such as riffs, jingles and possibilities to create expectations and the users’ everyday stories in grooves or beats and recomposes and programs rules for them into relation to the particular piece. For instance expecting a guitar riff in what we call Scenes. The music is recreated by users interacting with an up-coming chorus motivates the users to dance and mimic playing the interface in real-time, creating relations to each other, the sounds the guitar. The composer therefore needs to consider movement, and the interface. visuals and lighting response that goes with the music, and get help to design them into Scenes. A single sound, light or movement chunk 2. METHOD and its composition rules are designed so that they are possible to change dynamically when the person interacting, changes his or her 2.1 The Multidisciplinary Rhyme Project relationship with the music. Consequently, it is not enough to attach a The context for this paper is the 5-year research project Rhyme static sounding sample to an interactive object. A user goes from (http://www.rhyme.no) in the area of Internet-of-things, mobile viewing the music as a tool, getting motivated by short accentuated computing and social media for health. The goal is to improve and repeated sounds, separating the sound events stressing the break health and well-being for families with children with severe and the causal relation between action and sound, to dialogue. A disabilities in open, non-therapeutic everyday situations. We dialogue with the interactive tangible interface, considering it as a co- have so far explored multimodal, tangible and mobile computer player that answers back with over time varying sound and light. based designs to motivate persons on different levels of musical We define recreation as the users’ activities to interpret and co-